Merchant Crab-Chapter 287: Smashing and Crashing

The crab and his group ran down a widening tunnel, following the small orange kobold as he charged with his sharped stick pointed forward.

“The last redoubt of my tribe, this way is,” Kole yelled back at them as he sprinted at a surprising speed, given his small legs.

With all the skittering and the huffing and puffing that came with it, Balthazar could not find an opening to get any of his many questions in, and before long they saw a faint blue glow grow at the end of the tunnel.

They all skidded to a stop as they exited the passage into a large cave chamber.

It was around twice as large as his bazaar, which was always the crab’s main point of comparison as far as sizes of interior spaces went. Unlike all the tunnels and the room they had seen so far in that level of the mountain, this chamber had a much higher ceiling, about the same height as the merchant’s gazebo on the surface.

All around them were dozens of small huts made of the same dingy wood as Kole’s spear, and even more dozens of orange-scaled beings, all running around frantically. Some were grabbing their belongings in a rush, others looking for someone in the panicked crowds, their yells and cries filling the air in between the earth-shattering slamming coming from the other end of that underhall.

Behind a cloud of settling dust was a huge gap on the stone wall, freshly opened by some powerful force, judging by the distance of the debris on the cave floor.

A wave of orange kobolds reeled back from that half of the chamber, trying to get away from the horrible creatures squeezing their way through the breach.

A hulking mass of fat and muscles pushed itself free from the jagged edges of the narrow opening, landing on its feet with a heavy thud while more followed behind it.

Balthazar looked at the ogre at the front, big enough to make Khargol and Thunk look like children next to it, and frowned. He wasn’t sure what he had expected exactly, but the creature looked… wrong.

Its tough skin was a dull gray, almost like a rough stony hide, not a hint of green to it. The crab wondered if that was normal for underground ogres.

Something else he could not remember reading anywhere in the pages of the bestiaries was why these ogres had white, practically opaque pupils. Were they blind? Their behavior and movements did not seem to indicate that.

The foul-looking brute leading the charge scanned the room, one hand holding a primitive club made of that same dark wood as everything else in those mines. It was wearing an old, filthy loincloth, and its posture was ape-like—shoulders slumped forward, jaw hanging slack. Four sharp fangs jutted from its mouth, two from above and two rising from its lower lip.

That was definitely not a customer Balthazar would welcome into his establishment.

I know ogres are described as savage and dumb, but this seems like more than that. The merchant wondered to himself.

“Alright, guys. Something feels off with those ogres, let’s quickly assess the situation and make a pla—”

While talking and reaching for his monocle, Balthazar felt a knee bump against his shell, and the crab looked up to see Thunk stomping forward with her warhammer in her hands and thirst for battle in her tiny blue eyes.

“Crash and smaaaaash!” the barbarian yelled as she pushed past the retreating crowd of kobolds, heading toward the invading forces.

“No, you dullard, wait for us to—”

“To aaaaaaarms!” Hannabeth exclaimed, drawing her mace and shield as she chased after the other adventurer. “I shall cover your rear, friend!”

“Argh!” the exasperated crustacean groaned, throwing his pincers up.

They were definitely not off to a good start as a team, but then again, he wasn’t sure what else to expect from such a dysfunctional party.

Balthazar turned to look for Khargol, worrying the orc might be recklessly charging at the ogres too, which would be a lot more concerning, given his much lower level when compared to the other two.

“Where is that… Oh.”

The merchant spotted the chieftain navigating through the masses of fleeing kobolds, their heads barely reaching the height of the orc’s thighs as he held his battleaxe forward to point toward the tunnel they all had just come from.

“Evacuate the women and children first through there,” Khargol barked over the cries and yelps, before looking at Druma. “You and the drake, watch the back of the crowd for stragglers left behind while I clear the path forward.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Druma, mounted on Blue’s back, nodded affirmatively as they helped herd the mass of orange into the tunnel, making sure none of the juvenile kobolds fell behind.

“At least Khargol got the right idea,” Balthazar said. “Get the little ones out of here first instead of just charging in without thinking.”

“The hatchlings, protect them!” shouted Kole, standing by the side of the tunnel waving as rows of female kobolds rushed into the passage with their children clutched in their arms. “Into the omen chambers, take them. Too small to fit, for the ogres. Protect us, the hero and his allies will!”

Trying to not stand in the way or get swept up by the fleeing mob of kobolds, Balthazar skittered to the side, near a wall, where he found a huge backpack wearing a small farm boy.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” the crab asked.

“W-waiting f-for the danger to p-pass,” Joshua said, cowering under the bag as if it was his own protective carapace.

“Then why aren’t you evacuating with the kobolds back to where we came?!”

“Oh, no, no! I stay near Thunk—always,” said the scrawny young man. “Even while she’s busy fighting, I know that’s where I’ll be safest.”

Shaking his shell with a disapproving expression, Balthazar decided that was no time to be debating that boy’s attachment issues and turned to see what was happening on the other side of the camp.

More ogres had pushed through the breach on the cave wall, each one causing more rocks to break and making the gap wider for the next batch to pour in faster.

“You go squish!” Thunk yelled out as she brought her hammer down on the chest of another one of the monsters invading that chamber.

She had downed half a dozen of them already, with broken necks, smashed legs, and crushed chests. Their bodies were piled around her as the barbarian continued cackling and swinging her weapon at the next brute who came mindlessly charging in with its club in the air and mouth open in a primal grunt.

Meanwhile, Hannabeth stuck close behind the other adventurer, her shield held tight in front of her and mace ready in the other hand.

“Good show, lass! I’ve got you covered!” the knight-paladin shouted, while facing in the opposite direction, where there was no danger, only defeated ogres.

Despite their recklessness and lack of coordination, Balthazar felt hopeful that maybe things were going to be easier than expected as he watched the tide of invading forces being beaten back so easily.

And then, as they tend to, things changed.

Because of course they would!

A twitch at first, and then an arm jolting up, and soon enough the crab witnessed as the fallen ogres began rising again, their injuries seemingly not even bothering them, let alone keeping them down. They stood, picked up their weapons, and resumed their shambling toward the adventurers.

“Uh, my barbarian comrade?” said Hannabeth. “I believe something is amiss with thy former foes.”

Thunk’s head snapped back to look at the rising ogres, the dangling horn of her helmet slapping her bushy eyebrows as she frowned, suddenly confused about which opponents she should strike.

“I shall protect thee!” the paladin yelled, charging at the closest monster with her mace.

Unsurprisingly, her aim wasn’t great, and instead of the head of the weapon, it was the wooden handle that connected with the ogre’s thick thigh, causing it to snap in two.

The mace’s handle, not the brute’s leg.

One half fell to the floor with a metallic clunk, while the other remained in the adventurer’s grasp, like a jagged wooden stake.

“Oh, drats…” Hannabeth observed with pained resignation.

“Shoddy quality!” Balthazar shouted from afar, both pincers cupped around his mouth.

The ogre let out a guttural growl as it raised its club and brought it down on the canned knight.

Throwing the broken weapon aside, the adventurer quickly moved her shield above her head and held it with both arms, bracing for impact.

The creature’s blunt weapon crashed against the silver shield and immediately the merchant noticed something was wrong—it sounded like wood being broken, not metal.

Which probably had something to do with the fact that the paladin’s shield was, in fact, made of wood and not metal.

The club left a big crack in the middle of the painted wooden shield, and the knight dropped to one knee from the force of the impact.

Meanwhile, Thunk was beginning to show signs of exhaustion in her warhammer swings after so much reckless mashing and smashing, all while the amount of ogres encircling her continued to increase.

Things were looking dire for the two adventurers, and Balthazar was worried—mainly because he was quite sure the ogres would come his way next.

“Something isn’t right about these knuckle-draggers,” the crab said, picking up his monocle again. “And in this case I mean the ogres.”

Placing the lens in front of his eyestalk and looking at one of the beasts, the crustacean finally got his answer.

[Undead Ogre Thrall - Level 44]

“That’s it!” Balthazar exclaimed, before raising his voice into a shout toward the surrounded adventurers. “The ogres are—”

Rocks burst from above as the cave’s ceiling shattered like a thunderstorm of stone and debris, causing everyone to dive to the floor as the entire chamber shook from the impact.

The few kobolds still left trying to squeeze their way into the escape tunnel cried and yelled as they cowered, while Khargol, Druma, and Blue tried to shield them from the cloud of dust and flying pebbles.

Joshua threw himself at Balthazar’s shell in a scared hug for dear life.

“Get off of me!” the crab yelled while trying to keep his footing.

Over by the epicenter of the ceiling’s collapse, as the dust cleared, he could see a very confused barbarian and a knight. They were staring at one of the attacking ogres, pancaked beneath the massive weight of the golem that had just landed in the cave like an anvil dropped from a mountain.

“Friend!” Bouldy roared.

Riding on the stone golem’s shoulder was a girl in robes and a straw summer hat. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

“Undead!” Amber yelled. “They’re undead!”